Russia's central bank delays decision to select creator of national payment system

Elvira Nabiullina, the head of Russia's Central Bank, recently announced a delay in the decision to select a company to create Russia's new national payment system.

The two week delay applied to a law signed by President Vladimir Putin in May calling for the creation of a national payment system following Visa and MasterCard's decisions to stop servicing two Russian banks blacklisted by the U.S. in response to the annexation of Crimea, The Moscow Times reports.

Two potential payment systems have been put forward--the Universal Electronic Card (UEC) developed by Sberbank or the Golden Crown money transfer system currently used by more than 40,000 branches in Russia, the CIS and other nations.

The date for a decision on the matter was originally set for July 1, but the decision will now be pushed to mid-July, according to The Moscow Times.

German Gref, the head of Sberbank, said this week that the bank should develop the UEC system even if it is not chosen as the national payment system, according to Gazeta.ru, The Moscow Times reports.

Gref said online payment systems will be the bank's main competitors in the future.